The curtain rises on an artful display

IF YOU want to know how much e-mail you've got, just glance at the masterpiece hanging by your window. Curtains that resemble a Piet Mondrian painting are ideal for displaying digital information, the conference heard. "This is a whole new concept in interior design," says Lars Erik Holmquist of PLAY Interactive Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden, who designed the curtains with Tobias Skog. "You can hang something in your living room which is a combination of decoration and information."

One look at your curtains could give you the weather report, tell you the state of your e-mail inbox, or even how many lagers are left in the fridge.

Photosensitive threads that change colour under ultraviolet light are woven into the curtains, creating blocks of different colours in different parts of the fabric. By controlling the focus of the ultraviolet light shining on the fabric, a computer can display information by changing ...

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